


the cerulean mists

by livingtheobsessedlife



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Awkward Finn, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), M/M, The force used for un-force-like purposes, The stormtroopers never taught Finn how to flirt so now han has to do it, and tbh don’t we all, finn just really wants to make out with Poe but he doesn’t know how to use his words, forceghost, meddling forceghosts, the force used as a dating service
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24000271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livingtheobsessedlife/pseuds/livingtheobsessedlife
Summary: “What’s it like to have Luke’s forceghost around all the time?”Rey shrugs, “Hard to get used to.”“Is it like having an angel on your shoulder?”Rey snorts, “It’s more like having one of those obnoxious parrots that repeats the same thing over and over again.”
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo, Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 5
Kudos: 126





	the cerulean mists

**Author's Note:**

> happy May 4th y’all!! 
> 
> I really wanted to get this done by May 4th and I can’t believe I actually did it wow me look at you and your not procrastinating for once nice
> 
> anyway beware: my knowledge of canon forceghost autonomy is minimal so most of this is very much my own interpretation sorry if it’s wrong but oh well just enjoy the finnpoe thanks!

“What’s it like?” Finn asks Rey, the two huddled under a cheap fleece blanket in the cargo bay of the Falcon while Poe fiddles with the heating system on the other side of the ship. 

Rey takes her head off Finn’s shoulder to look up at him. 

“What’s what like?”

“You know-“ Finn struggles to find his words, his hands move animatedly under the blanket as if an extension of his expression, “What’s it like to have Luke’s forceghost around all the time?”

Rey shrugs, “Hard to get used to. But also sorta… I don’t know, inevitable-feeling? I can’t really describe it.”

Finn imagines what it must feel like with excitement. He imagines a perpetual cerulean mist like a halo, this curved weight of wisdom and history and veritable advice to be taken at will like a fountain that never runs out perched serenely on her shoulder. 

“Is it like having an angel on your shoulder?” 

His voice comes out eager, brushed with awe and idolatry, and his words flush together as he says them. 

Rey snorts, “It’s more like having one of those obnoxious parrots that repeats the same thing over and over again.”

Finn cocks an eyebrow. This is Luke Skywalker she’s talking about here- the man that folklore is made out of, childhood stories about him told to kids around fires all across the galaxy- but Rey is resolute. 

“That’s right I said it. And he knows exactly how he is.”

It’s not until later that Finn realizes that last part had probably been directed specifically at Luke’s forceghost, and not necessarily Finn himself. 

The thing about Finn and the forceghosts is that he doesn’t get Luke Skywalker or Obi Wan Kenobi or even Darth Vader himself, he just gets this vague, weighty mist of time hanging around his shoulders like a feather boa made out of a thousand ancestors’ resurrected souls. It always feels like there’s somebody lurking over his shoulder, judging his every move, counting his steps. There’s a thousand held breaths when he leaps and a million snickers when he falls. Hundreds of tiny cheers when he gets back up again. 

The vague, unidentifiable presence teaches him to be more adaptable to his surroundings, to familiarize himself quicker with a new environment. When he steps into a new room, he’s learned to describe the inhabitants without ever cracking open an eyelid. Not like a Jedi, not like Rey, he’s just become- more aware.. And yet, the forceghosts remain silent. 

He asks Rey about Luke, when exactly it was he made himself known. 

Rey snorts derisively with humor, “Almost immediately. I can’t get rid of the guy.”

Finn figures he would’ve had a name or a face or something resonating along the lines of why he always felt the listless presences by now if they were really as significant as Luke was to Rey. 

He doesn’t tell Poe anything about the forceghosts. 

Not because he’s embarrassed or anything, moreso he just has no clue how he would ever even remotely broach the topic. _Hey I’m force sensitive and there are thousands of dead people talking to me all the time but they never actually say anything_ , doesn’t really make for casual conversation. 

Finn really wants to talk to Poe about it. 

When Finn and Rey first realized that Finn was force sensitive at all, Poe had been holding onto the Millenium Falcon by its most manual controls, Rey was pushing a million identical buttons in a highly specific order that Finn couldn’t possibly comprehend, and Finn was sat behind the two of them freaking the hell out as the Falcon inched towards hyperdrive. 

Then the worst happened (or maybe it was just the inevitable).

Finn and Rey both felt it. Rey faltered, pointer finger hovering over a big blue button. Behind her, Finn gasped instinctively, quieted at the feeling of his heart being drowned in an unfamiliar grief, and she turned to look at him, eyes wide and expression reflecting the same turmoil that Finn felt deep in his chest. 

It was the biggest rift in the force that Finn had ever felt (though, granted, he hadn’t felt all that many, none with positivity until that very moment), but it was undeniable. The way the force came crashing down on the terrestrial beings as if in agony. Finn felt, for the briefest of moments, as though he was at sea, looking up and up for a hundred miles right above his head to see the cape of an oncoming wave, cerulean, darkened by shadows of fossils and things that breathe. It crashes over them gently, undulating beneath their skin. 

In that moment, they know: Leia has died. Sacrificed her body to the force. They feel it in the way that the force hugs them both tight, a shared, cold sort of warmth that they see on each other’s faces.

Poe, however, doesn’t react even the tiniest bit. In his world, the skies are clear but for the stars spilling over his dashboard and there’s no crack in the ceramic galaxy to stop him from slapping the Prep Hyperdrive lever and calling out, adrenaline dripping off his tongue, “Last button, Rey, come on! Let’s get us out of here!” 

To him, that moment was just another moment in the long string of moments after they won the battle. A victorious smile lives on his lips, a happiness high in his chest, pride. He doesn’t even know Leia died, blissfully ignorant while Finn’s whole world had faltered, changed, shifted on its axis in a single moment. 

Force sensitive. He was force sensitive. Finn wasn’t as surprised as he would’ve expected to be about it. 

Rey hits the big blue button with more force than really necessary and they’re all pulled into the next moment as the Millenium Falcon slingshots them into another star system. 

Finn still doesn’t bring up the ghosts to Poe. He wouldn’t know where to start. 

And besides, it’s not like they’re saying anything. The forceghosts, their presence is more like a pleasant intrusion than anything, a silent quasi-comfort. He’s never alone, but he’s never surrounded. They stay silent for a long time, and Finn starts to think _okay, so this must be what the force is like that’s cool_.

It’s not what the force is like. 

The force is just unsure. The figures lurking behind the veil, watch patiently, laugh and hold their breath, and wait for when the time is right. 

It’s funny that it’s Han Solo who ends up blowing it. Han fucking Solo always making a mess of things a hell of a lot bigger than himself. He was barely even force sensitive while alive, fueled solely by his belief in his wife and her steadfast devotion to the power of the force. It’s Han who reveals the true nature of the forceghosts to Finn before he’s ready (according to the Jedi masters at least- If you ask Han, it was about damn time. 

“ _Goddamn, kid, you’re awful at this_ ,” Han hisses from behind the veil. It feels like a shiver running down Finn’s spine. 

Finn whips around. He’s alone. Poe’s receding back was the only thing around. 

“Who’s there?” Finn calls into the empty hallway. 

“ _Dammit, Han_ ,” General Organa curses, “ _He’s not supposed to know we’re here yet_.”

“ _I don’t care. I can’t stand this anymore. It’s embarrassing to watch. The kid needs help_.”

Finn is completely and utterly alone, surrounded only by an empty, steel-plated hallway. An LED flickers above his head. 

Somewhere in the beyond, Leia aggressively shushes Han, and Finn calls out again, “I can hear you. Where are you?”

There’s no response. 

So Finn doesn’t tell Poe about the forceghosts, but he eventually tells Rey. 

They’re in the cafeteria, big lobs of mystery soup slopped into bowls that pilots all around them dive into with voracity. Finn picks at the broth-like space between potatoes. Rey digs in. 

“Hey, Rey? Can I tell you something?” 

Rey nods, mumbles around a full mouth, “Shoot, buddy. What’s up?”

The thing is, Finn never really stops thinking about the way Rey carries Luke’s forceghost around with her all the time, the way she brings him with her like an angel and a demon all at once. 

“Can you tell me more about what the forceghost is like?” He asks, trying not to sound overly eager. 

Rey scrapes the rest of the liquid off the bottom of her bowl and wipes at her mouth, gulping the last of it down, and she nods as she sets her spoon to the side. 

She tells him about Luke, or rather his presence.

It’s Finn’s third time asking after her experience with forceghosts so she figures it’s not worth it to hold anything back anymore. Finn would’ve stopped asking after the first time if it had merely been sheer curiosity (Luke guides her to this conclusion, not that she’d tell Finn that part either way).

She tells Finn, crouched over the privacy of their red plastic trays, how when he’d first arrived she’d tried to shake herself of Luke’s presence- a few times actually. She had been irked by the idea of him always being there in death, but the Force had tethered his presence to her and now he exists solely in the space behind her eyes. The Force has its reasons. 

In turn, Finn tells her how sometimes he hears voices, somewhere from beyond the mist. He swears he recognizes some of them, maybe Leia, probably Han, and half a dozen more that he can’t name. He tells her how they come and go and never address him directly, and Rey tells him he’s lucky. 

She reaches her spoon over into his bowl without asking, “You really should count yourself lucky,” She tells him, “I’m getting real fed up with Luke always parroting himself. I’m not sure how I’m gonna deal with him for eternity.”

“What do I do?” He asks her, and he doesn’t even care that she finishes off his lunch. 

Her mouth’s full again, somehow, as she untangles her legs out from behind her bench seat, “Have you tried talking to them directly? Kinda a recognition-by-force kinda thing? Bang around until they have no choice but to admit that they’re hanging around you?”

Finn blinks. He hadn’t thought of that, “Would that work?”

She’s already halfway to Chewie’s table on the opposite side of the cafeteria, and she shrugs exaggeratedly, half-jogging backwards as she smiles at him, “Hell if I know. Why not? Good luck!”

When Poe takes the seat next to him moments later, Finn is surrounded by two empty lunch trays, and Poe grins down at them, taking a greedy bite of his own food, “Hungry, weren’t we, Finn?”

Finn doesn’t know how to tell him that it wasn’t him. That he’s actually half-starved. He lets it go without rebuttal. His mind is elsewhere.

He pushes away from the table with an offhand closelipped smile, “I- uh- I have to go. I’ll see you later, Poe.”

By the time Finn makes it out of the cafeteria, Poe’s practically finished devouring his own faux-soup concoction. 

Finn decides the best course of action is to lock himself into his quarters. Rey was right, it was worth a shot. He double checks the lock and sits down the bed. Without even saying a word, he feels ridiculous. His fingers curl around a loose string along the side of his pants and his eyes are stuck on the lock of the door. He thinks of Rey jogging backward “ _why not?_ ”, she’d cried out. Why the hell not? Finn can’t think of any excuses beyond feeling ridiculous.

“Why the hell not,” He murmurs to himself, tearing off the stray string. He pulls his eyes away from the lock on the door to look up at the ceiling- not that looking at the ceiling will make the whole venture any more effective, it just feels like the right place to avert his eyes while he talks to half a million hosts he can’t see. His knee jumps up and down nervously. He clears his throat.

“Hey, uh, so I’m not actually sure if anybody can hear me, or if anybody’s listening, or if maybe there really are just strange voices in my head and I should go down to the Infirmary and get checked out or whatever, but I’m pretty sure you guys are forceghosts, and I, uh- I guess I’d like some confirmation or something?”

He hits his knee, “God this is so stupid of me, what an awful reason. Look, I’m just, I’m going a little crazy down here, or over here, or wherever, not knowing who’s there, but constantly feeling your presence. I’d just like to know if there’s really anybody there. An also why. It’d be really stinkin’ nice to know why.” 

He waits patiently. In silence. Staring up at the ceiling, praying to the Force for a response. 

Instead, there’s silence. Cruel, cruel silence. 

With nothing left to lose, Finn tries again. 

“I get it if you’re not supposed to tell me for some reason. I’m not a jedi or anything, I’m just some nobody, but if you could just even- I don’t know give me some sort of sign that there’s somebody there, I’d really appreciate it.”

This time, Finn swears he hears a couple bickering, somewhere in the recesses of the universe. _The poor kid, come on, let’s just tell him_ , one of the voices says, while the other violently shushes him. The voices sound muffled, like they’re trapped behind a closet door, playing hide and seek somewhere behind the veil, waiting for the right time to jump out and holler, _Surprise! Found you_!.

“I can hear you,” Finns says, trying not to get his hopes up, “I can hear you out there. So I’m not crazy?”

There’s silence again. Absolute silence this time. It’s a silence that Finn hasn’t felt in years, an uncomfortable, itchy silence, that feels like a haunted house put on mute. Then there’s a sound like opening the window during a rain storm, stepping out into the weather as the sun rises before you. 

“ _You’re not crazy, son_ ,” Comes the voice, clear as day. 

“Han,” Finn says, relieved, “It really is you.”

“ _He won’t shut up about bringing you into the light_.”

“Leia!”

“ _You must have patience, Finn. The Force will reveal its intentions in due time_.”

“But wait!”

Finn feels the door close again. It’s like a gust of a chilly wind on a humid day, forceful and concentrated for an intense moment before everything returns back to stagnancy. 

“Dammit,” He hisses into his empty room. 

With his door still locked, Finn collapses backwards onto his bed and condemns himself to thinking in silence, staring at the ceiling and trying to ignore the weight of all the voices in his head. Eventually, he drifts off to sleep. 

He wakes up to Poe banging on the door.

“Hey, buddy, you in there? I’ve been looking for you everywhere, it’s almost dinner time.”

Finn curses under his breath, shaking himself awake, “Uh yeah,” he says, stumbling towards the door, “Coming, one sec.”

By the time Finn pulls the door open, Poe’s laughing, that smile pulling at the corners of his lips, “Force, Finn, what’re you up to in here?”

“I- uh- nothing. Just- sleeping.”

Poe laughs and leans against the doorway, “You disappeared on me there, buddy. I was worried you wandered off somewhere you weren’t supposed to or something.”

Finn feels his face burn, “Nope, just- just sleeping.”

Poe pushes past Finn into the small room as easy as if he fell into it and he leans back on the bed, leveraging himself up on his elbows and looking up at Finn with those big eyes of his, “For the record, I didn’t mean that I thought you were doing something wrong or getting into trouble. I just wanted to make sure you were alright,” He grins magnificently, and Finn literally feels his knees on the verge of giving out completely, his head going fuzzy, “And besides, if you were getting into some kind of trouble, I’d want to be there with you. Just so you know.”

Finn is hopeless to doing anything beside stand there and blush in the doorway, eyes blushing, too unsure to say anything. So Poe clears his throat and pushes himself off of Finn’s cot. He pats Finn’s shoulder as he passes, smiling at the doorway, “See you in the cafeteria in ten minutes, buddy. Don’t go falling asleep on me again, ‘Kay?”

Poe’s eyes are sparkling in that ridiculous way that Finn never has any idea how to process and so he does his best to respond, kicking himself, “See you soon, Poe.”

And so Finn closes the door on one of the worst conversations of his life. He crashes onto the very same cot that Poe had leaned down on and looked up at him and Finn had fucked everything up with and- he curses at the ceiling. 

“ _Oh come on, Leia_ ,” A voice murmurs, peeking out from behind the heavy veil, “ _You’re really gonna tell me we gotta stay quiet after that monstrosity_?”

Leia grumbles something in response that Finn can’t quite hear (with the vague tone of a mother stomping her feet in reprisal at an insolent child), but then her voice becomes clearer, and she sighs, “ _Fine. Finn, we’re here for you. Han seems to think you need the help_.”

“General Organa,” Finn says, talks directly to the goddamned ceiling, a hand muffling his mouth in case somebody happened to walk by and suddenly have tell the whole base that Finn the ex-storm trooper has gone insane and talks to himself in his quarters, “I don’t think I want to be a jedi. I just want to understand the force better is all.”

Leia sounds tired, even from beyond the grave, _“That’s not the kind of help we’re talking about_.”

“ _Kid, you’re hopeless with the guys. I can’t sit idly by and watch you make a fool of yourself anymore. You’re tripping over yourself, it’s embarrassing. Kid, you’re head over fucking heels and you have no idea how to stand upright._.”

Finn frowns, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t- I mean. It wasn’t that bad.”

“ _Kid, you’re worse than Luke was_.”

There’s a ruffle in the force, and somewhere within the millions of pleats in time and space, Finn feels an objection through the Force, “ _Hey! I wasn’t that bad_!”

Luke. 

Finn feels his heart swell. This whole experience is mind-boggling. A whole world built in the garden behind the cathedral, hundreds of jedis and force-sensitive characters at play beyond the universe at Finn’s fingertips. It’s magnificent, and vast, and Finn gets distracted from the task at hand by the wonder of it all. Forceghosts. Huh. 

_“While the force should be used for more dignified purposes-“_

“ _We’re gonna make an exception this time-_ “

“ _Like maintaining the balance of the universe-_ “

“ _And we’re gonna help you get your guy_.”

Leia sighs. 

“Why would you do that?”

Finn can imagine the way Han shrugs nonchalantly, more likely than not grins like the suave bastard he was in life, “ _Cause I can’t stand it anymore, kid. Seriously. If I gotta spend the rest of eternity listening to you blabber on, I gotta do something to make it somewhat more bearable._.”

Leia pipes up, sounds exhausted before she’s even dealt with Han for all of eternity, “ _And if we can get you to express your feelings to Poe, then maybe we can get some actual work done_.”

“Oh.”

“ _Oh is right_ ,” Han says, “ _Now here’s what you’re gonna do.”_

After that, Finn becomes much more acquainted with his forceghosts. He usually just has Han and Leia bickering in his ears, like a porcelain set of an angel and a demon to rest on his shoulder. But sometimes other jedis show up who have a presence in the force, other interested members of the Skywalker family and history who seem to have two cents on Finn’s abysmal love life, other characters who in life and practice actually knew how to talk to other people. 

Through Han’s (usually needlessly aggressive) coaching, Finn gradually learns how to express his feelings, to Poe and the other people around him. 

Rey smiles at Finn one day, a goofy little grin that spreads wider and wider as he tells her a story about him and BB8 pranking Poe. Finn pokes at his creamed vegetable, “What? What’s with that smile?”

“Nothing, it’s just- you’ve gotten a lot better at this.”

Finn knows better than to question what exactly this is. He takes it as a compliment, smiles back, “Thanks,” He says to her, making a stab at her freeze dried desert that she easily reflects, “Wanna hear the rumors Jessika told me about the mechanics boys? Apparently they hooked up.”

“Oh my god, tell me.”

Finn grins, and dives into his story. He’s pretty positive he feels somebody high five back behind the dimensional curtain of the Force. Definitely Han. Finn wonders absently, as he tells Rey about the two mechanics who got caught in the steam room, who it was exactly that was on the other end of Han’s high five. Finn can’t even imagine Leia high fiving, can only imagine her glaring at Han’s outstretched palm as he demands gratification. It makes his smile widen. 

As time goes on and Finn becomes closer and more familiar with the Force, he starts to understand what Rey meant when she compared it to an annoying parrot. He can’t talk to Poe anymore nowadays without somebody nudging him toward confession and truth and buried emotions. It’s getting really annoying. 

But then, weeks later, when Finn is finally able to get a full sentence out to ask Poe out for dinner, he inwardly thanks the Force. 

And later that night, when Poe is leaning against Finn’s door to say good night, Finn feels a push in the force, or maybe more of a shove, that inches Finn closer in Poe’s direction. And suddenly Finn is pressing a kiss to Poe’s lips, and everything feels right in the Force. 

Somewhere within the recesses of his mind, Finn feels a celebration, and he smiles into the kiss. Presses a brave hand to Poe’s chest, “Good night,” He says coyly, and disappears into his quarters. 

“ _Proud of you, kid_ ,” Han says, but Finn’s already smiling. 

He supposed it’s time to embrace the force. He knocks at the curtain, gazes through the cerulean mists, “ _Thank you_ ,” He says into the distance. 

And like a ghost has touched his skin, he feels several sets of hands rest on his shoulders, “ _No, Finn. Thank you. Welcome._ ”


End file.
